When the Captain says my name
by C.Watherston
Summary: Because when there are bullets flying around ones head and people trying to kill you, putting an entire plan into a name is an important skill to have. A series of one-shots as each of the crew reflects on the way that the Captain says their name.
1. Jayne

**When the Captain says my name **

Jayne, surprisingly, was actually the oldest member of the Firefly's crew. He'd been there before Wash, before Kaylee, before Bester. For all his crude barbarianism and clashes with the Captain, he'd been a steady presence on the ship and Malcolm had always relied on him. Never trusted him entirely and with good reason, but he'd relied on the big man to do the job and get paid. They'd been through hell and high water together. Shot, cheated, tortured and tied to say the least. Over the course of these various conflicts, Jayne had heard the captain say his name a great many ways. He'd come to learn that within that one little syllable could be an entire conversation of plan-making, an hour long lecture, or the promise of violence and retribution if he didn't toe the line quickly.

There was the way he said 'Jayne' short and sharp when, for example, he left his radio on when a pretty blonde whore was talking dirty to him right before a siege. It was a tone not specifically meant for Jayne, but more than often was directed at him. It was the crack of the whip. The wise-up-right-now-or-say-goodbye-to-your-bunk voice.

Then there was 'JAAAYYYNNEEE!', which came with his least favourite translations, for there were two very specific meanings. Number one was the inexplicable threat of imminent violence. Like Mal walking into the kitchen and finding a young, pious passenger in a swoon across Kaylee's lap and the explanation is 'Jayne's naked'. Number two translation came when they were in the _middle _of the violence and something was about to get worse. Hereby the good captain roars the mercenary's name as loud as he can and aforementioned mercenary does something very quickly to stop a bullet ending up in the captain's ass, voiding all chances of said mercenary every getting paid.

There was the 'Jayyy-ne' when something was about to get interesting. Wash-definition interesting, that is. The events following that weren't always fun, but it wasn't as bad as the other ones.

Then there was the last way. It didn't happen often, but when it did proceedings usually concluded with Jayne having a headache for one reason or another. The first time Mal had said Jayne's name in this way, they'd been sitting across from Fanty and Mingo trying to decide which way the slimy pair of thieves were going to jump.

'Jayne'

Simple. To the point. With all the heart-stopping connotations of a unidentified smear of blood where a friend had been standing a moment before. It took him a while to figure out a translation for this. At the time it had meant; _holy-mother-of-god-and-all-her-wacky-nephews; do something! _But it had come to mean more.

It meant-

"Jayne. RIVER IS HANGING FROM THE GORRAM CEILING!"

Or that. That worked too.

"DAMMIT MOONBRAIN!"


	2. Zoe

Now, when it came to his first mate, the Captain didn't really need to have ways of saying her name because in reality they could plan an entire heist without so much as exchanging a single word. Nevertheless, she didn't have to look at him to translate her own name on his lips.

"Zoe"

It was soft, quiet, low. Like the huff of a man just shot in the back. He'd said it as she stood staring at her husband's name, wearing her wedding dress and wishing like hell the wound on her back had killed her back there on Miranda. She'd heard that tone to others before, when they were in the trenches and somebody had just lost a mate, a brother, a lover to the fire and horrors. She'd never heard him direct that tone to her before and it hit her like _she'd _been the one shot. It was like the key that turned the lock on her emotions and suddenly everything rushed out.

Mal, being Mal, just held her tightly and stood there.

"ZOOOOIEEEE!"

Of course she knew what that meant. It meant; _'Gorrammit you were right again!' _and that she should probably do something to save his life so she could give him the 'I told you so' look at a later date.

"Zo-ee!"

Whiney/cranky/short-tempered/hung-over Captain needing attention. It meant he'd married a sociopathic red-head, bet _Serenity _in a card game, found Simon and Kaylee wrapped up somewhere mightily inappropriate, had a ten-second conversation with River or found Jayne nekkid someplace. The rest of the crew had become accustomed to making themselves scarce when the Captain said Zoe's name in this particular way, especially if they were the cause of the tone.

"_Zoe!" _

Usually followed by some blustering, terrible excuse that said more for her correctness on whatever statement he was denying than if he had just agreed with it. Like the time she asked why he was sneaking back from Inara's pod early in the day cycle wearing yesterday's clothes and he'd started giving her a detailed lecture on the dangers of space monkeys. Or when she'd said there was no way Badger was going to fall for their cargo-switch trick.

Then, sometimes, just for a change, he'd give her a nod and say _'_Zoe' crisply and simply and confidently and she'd immediately relax because everything was good. It meant Wash's baby was sound asleep and dreaming sweet white dreams, that River hadn't needed her soother today, that Jayne hadn't shot/killed/blown up/punched out anyone or anything important. It was a balm to her soul. She always dreamed of Wash's smile when he said her name like that right before she went to her bunk for the night, lulled by the sound of her baby's breaths.


	3. Inara

Inara Serra has always been in control. There is a balance within her, radiating poise and calm. It is not a delicate thing, Inara's balance. It takes a lot to upset it.

Malcolm Reynolds is a lot.

He is the only man she has ever met that transforms the steady tide of inner into a cyclonic storm. He does it effortlessly, with a wink or a smirk or an action of stupidity or bravery or charm or daring.

"Ah, Inara" he'll say, and it's the same tone he uses when he calls her their Ambassador. She struggles to maintain a surface of cool while the currents turn vicious beneath the mirror of her façade. Since Miranda, he addresses her in that tone less and less, until finally she cannot remember the last time he said her name in that way.

"InARA!" he roars her name so that it rebounds off _Serenity_'s walls and causes her to drop a very expensive bone china teacup. When he bawls out to her in this way, it is an indicator that he needs her to watch the ship, or coax Kaylee out from the unproductive mood their dear, clueless doctor had put her in. Sometimes it means he's lost River or gotten shot dirt-side and is convinced in some way that it is her doing. It infuriates her because she knows he only does it because there is never any good reason to be shouting like that.

"Nara!"

Now when he shouts like that, her heart begins to pound so fast it is impossible to discern individual beats, flooding ice water through her veins. She feels cold like nothing can describe when she hears Mal call out to her in that tone, and she knows from experience that she won't feel warm until the night after whatever disaster has befallen them. On the night after, when the Captain is finally sleeping fitfully, she'll sneak down into his room and lay a hand on his frowning forehead. Sometimes, rarely, but _sometimes_ she even summons the courage from the shattered pieces of her inner tranquillity to bestow a kiss to the corner of his mouth. She remembers the one time, the one and only time, that she kissed him full on the mouth. Mostly, she recalls the sensation after these secretive visits to Mal's beside.

She remembers the time his hand almost fell to her shoulder as he breathed her name pleadingly. There was danger and fear and she was scared half out of her mind for what was about to happen, but there was Mal.

"_Inara_" he'd said, like it was almost a prayer and she'd swallowed because she so wanted to kiss him in that moment. It was the one and the only time she'd ever heard him utter the two syllables in that breathy, half-whispered way.

She doesn't know that sometimes he says it in his sleep, thinking of her eyes and her smile and her soft hands and the rare breed of her laughter that is pure and unbridled.


	4. River

River Tam was known for a long time only by a number. She was not human, not a real girl. Before then, in the fuzzy days of Simon and exciting new books and brightness only ever marred by the cutting tones of her mother and the silence of her father, she had been called _angel, pet, darling, sweetheart, mei-mei, sister _but it was only ever these last two things that were uttered with any feeling. Otherwise, it was '_Angel, be a good girl and go upstairs' _and _'Don't annoy Mr Johnson now, darling, why don't you run along sweetheart' _

Then it was painful and black and River Tam was no more. She was Experiment, Weapon, Dangerous; a Creature of Extraordinary Grace, but a Creature nonetheless.

Now she is the Girl. She has _Serenity _and family and Simon and Kaylee making fireworks in the engine room and the scars of Miranda that pull tight sometimes and sting, but the pain is mostly gone. She has long and informative conversations with Wash's daughter that makes everybody shake their heads, astounded.

She has a _name. _She is the Captain's precious, protected and sometimes exasperating Albatross. Except when Captain Daddy gets exasperated with her, she doesn't feel black oil stirring in her belly and spreading across her skin like she is a dirty, worthless little girl who is too clever and too strange to show off to Important People.

When Captain Daddy slowly raises his head and looks at her with wide, horror filled eyes, his mind a white black whirl, he'll look back at their red-faced client and say, very slowly; _Ta ma de '_Tro_-ss" _

She knows then that she has said something she wasn't supposed to and that they are about to fill the air with whizzing lead bees and she will have to dance with her boots in men's faces. As if their overweight client didn't need or want to know exactly how much pressure clogged arteries are exerting on his aorta.

When Mal's roar echoes through _Serenity_'s womb ("RRRRRRRIIIIIVVVVEERRR!") she knows that he has discovered she was testing the resilience of his bunks blankets, should they ever have to use them to bind a prisoner or a lion. She finds them entirely unsuitable for this purpose. She doesn't know why he banishes her to her bunk for a week; he should have been thanking her!

On jobs that go wrong and River ends up swallowing bugs in the escape, the Captain will roar and shout and blow about like a bad-tempered wind storm until everyone is as ruffled and busy as he is. Then he will grab her by the shoulders, tipping her face up to check she is alive, breathing and in one piece and say; "Good job, 'Tross"

Other times he will kiss her head and call her _bao bei. _There was that one time, out celebrating Zoe's birthday that he used her name in the same tone one would refer to a god or an angel, his pistol in the mouth of a man who was thinking red, hot things at her when she danced.

On long, cold nights when she is sitting in the pilot's chair, talking to Wash's dinosaurs and watching the stars, and Captain Daddy decides to join her, he will stand in the doorway and watch her until she notices him and turns.

"All's well, Albatross?" he'll say, softly because she is precious but gruffly because he doesn't like being caught out.


End file.
